Beginners and Beyond

Cheating (Read 298 times)

Not even. Lance himself last night that he never worried about testing positive because in his day, they only regularly tested at races, and at races everyone was clean. He believed it was just about impossible to get caught.

He did this with a psychopathic smirk on his face, but that's another story. After listening to the interview, I am pretty much convinced the guy is a legit psychopath.

I don't know why so much is made of whether or not he was justified in doping to win when 90% of the reason Lance is a sleazeball is because he sued, bullied, and ruined people for the mere act of telling the truth and threatening to expose his lie. Those are his own words, paraphrased. And that is the real travesty in the whole Armstrong saga.

If he was just some regular doper who never screwed with anybody, like Tyler or Floyd, this would have all been forgotten by now, and he would have been running his bike shop and giving out training lessons to happy customers for a living like those two.

Let's dispel the notion that if someone dopes but keeps it quiet, he's not doing any harm. A doper hurts everyone in a race that places below him. A doper hurts every athlete that is trying to excel by legitimate means, i.e. the years of training and sacrifice that are rendered moot by deceit. A doper hurts the entire sport in which he participates.

It is just as wrong whether one percent or one hundred percent of the participants are doing it.

Let's dispel the notion that if someone dopes but keeps it quiet, he's not doing any harm. A doper hurts everyone in a race that places below him. A doper hurts every athlete that is trying to excel by legitimate means, i.e. the years of training and sacrifice that are rendered moot by deceit. A doper hurts the entire sport in which he participates.

It is just as wrong whether one percent or one hundred percent of the participants are doing it.

I really there are some people who like to speak against the popular trend, just to show they're different. Not thing wrong with that and it happens a lot with news writers as that's their job to provide a unique and not been thoroughly thought out angle. But sometimes (not most of the time) you can't stop wondering, are they morons? (urghh, more nicely put, can they please be a bit more intelligent or use some common sense in what they are talking about, as usually they seemly diligently ignore some ground truth to make their cases).

Lance is really an old story by now. However, I'd like to say it one more last time why it's not a leveled playing field and it's cheating from any angle you poke at it. (If you aren't against cheating then that's another story).

Lance had used steroids, cortisone, blood doping (EPO and blood transfusion), HGH, testosterone, etc, pretty much every PEDs that are banned in sports (cycling is not only an endurance event like a marathon, it also requires strength and depending on the event, timingly recovery can be as critical as anything).

1. not everybody has the same assess to those drugs (the field had never been leveled) even we set aside the issue that some have better drug response than others.

2. Before Lance got cancer, guess how many TdF he took part in and how many he completed and his finish?

Ans: He did 2 and finished 1 that he ranked 97 overall (won 1 stage). And he was already using drugs back then. So to say just because other riders used drugs so it's a fair game is being very naive. Here, the doped Lance after cancer beat the doped Lance before cancer handily. And note that he had turned pro several years by the time he got cancer. It's not like he's a novice and still had a big room for improving.

3. Knowledgeable people in cycling have noted that Lance was never a good climber. But somehow after he healed from cancer he became a tireless good climber. What makes TdF such a challenge and a distinguish events from most others is the tough climbing one stage after another. It's not only a test on your one day endurance, most people, even pros have difficulty to recover properly after a tough ride in a very short time frame and that's what the testosterone and HGH come into play, for recovery (testosterone dips very low and renders recovery impossible).

4. Yet after one TdF win after another, Lance didn't win other tours as much. He might have chosen to only do TdF and few other events, but it also could be the drugs now gave him the advantage over other riders(groups) in TdF. That advantage he wouldn't have as much in other events.

5. It is a team effort as other riders in the group have to protect their leader in leading position, so they ALL have to dope as well. Not only Lance was well doped, the whole was, and more than other teams did.

What I'd like to be in defense of his money is, before Lance became known, cycling was like today's running, not well known. Not much money was in there. So whatever he did, legally or illegally, respectably or despicably, he got the money to pour in this sport. He did earn the money because it was he who made the sport known (to the public).

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A simple solution

Also, the big players (corporations, sponsors, team owners) can totally help with the doping issues if they really have their heart to it and really think it's a problem (I doubt it's seen as a problem by them)--simply add a clause in the contract that if the rider get caught doping then he'd have to return all the money.